


Days of Judgement

by AmonKingsley



Category: Horus Heresy - Various Authors, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Gen, Horus Heresy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:22:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 18,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21915175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmonKingsley/pseuds/AmonKingsley
Summary: When a grisly discovery is made in the depths of Hive Tetra on Macharia in the Cadian system itself, Proctor Saal Huulta of the Adeptus Arbites is sent to investigate. But swiftly he finds himself caught up a plot by the ruinous powers to ensnare the Daughters of the Primarchs...
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	1. Day One: Saal Huulta

**Author's Note:**

> Author's note: This is not a stand-alone story. It is a continuation of the Primarch's Daughters series by /tg/. Before reading, it is helpful to have read these stories, especially Bound Fate by ILikeCommas found on FanFiction.net.

It is a time of peace.

The Great Crusade is long over, the epic battles and mythic triumphs of a galaxy-spanning effort to bring Mankind together once more are but echoes in the minds of Imperial citizens.

But the Primarchs live on, united as they ever were, the memories of war still fresh in their aeonian minds.

In another time, perhaps, this would not be so; but here the Emperor, the Master of Mankind, knew humility and tolerance. Here He listened to Eldrad Ulthan, Farseer of Craftworld Ulthwé.

In the 36th millennium Terra is whole, the Imperium united; the harbingers of Chaos were cast down from among the ranks of the Word Bearers, and so the Great Heresy never came to pass.

The Eldar Empire is reborn on the eastern fringes of the galaxy, the Pact of Brotherhood between Man and Eldar symbolized by a Golden Orb which links the seats of these two great realms through the Warp.

But the Primarchs are exemplars of war, and a time of peace causes them to chafe, to scrape at the boundaries of life.

The Emperor foresaw this even before He gathered His lost sons, and at Ullanor, when He made great Horus the Warmaster, the Emperor put His plan into motion.

When the Primarchs returned from the Great Crusade, called suddenly, an unexpected gift awaited them.

A family.

For while they toiled at the outer reaches of the galaxy, the Emperor had toiled yet more fervently that they may have a legacy beyond bloodshed.

Centuries have passed since then and still those Daughters, those Lady Primarchs, watch over and protect the masses of humanity, acting as the bridge between the Primarchs and the common man.

But even now, dangers still face the Daughters. The primordial annihilator hungers for them, still seeking to bring down the carefully constructed bulwarks holding the ruinous powers at bay. An invisible web seeks to ensnare the Daughters. And in these times, the right man in the wrong place can make all the difference in the world...

\---

_At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst._

–Aristole, Ancient Grekian philosopher, M0

_To stand upon the bedrock of the Law is our great duty. To presume to stand above it is our worst heresy._

– Saal Huulta after the Lundermann Case

_Only in your deepest self is the truth of what you can be. And, without a doubt, that truth is terrible to bear._

– attributed to John Grammaticus, Perpetual

**Day One: Saal Huulta**

At a distance, war makes a particular sound. The quake of the ground, the thrumming of engines, the rattle of weapons, the muffled thump of detonations, the holler of voices; it all blends together into a kind of ominous growl, the feral call of some prehistoric carnivore over the next hill. Closer however, and the murmur turns into a roar, the scream of a million throats, the thunderous crash of artillery fire and the howling of the dying as they lie side by side with the dead in the freezing mud.

This was the aural soundscape that engulfed the Captain as he spurred his men forward, daring them to seize the moment and finish the foe. In one hand he held his sabre, a treasured gift from those he considered his family. It was running red with blood.

This was the final push, the last bloody act in a war that had dragged on for half a decade. Do or die time. The Captain had been leading them for nearly five years, and his time was nearly up. This would be his last fight. Then he would head back home, to the woman he loved. He already wore a ring on his finger, a symbol of the commitment he had made to her a short time before, during his last period of leave.

Tanks rumbled alongside the troops, cannons blasting at the foe with vigour, covering the advance. Across the battlefield, massive war engines stomped along like iron gods, the foe fleeing with every ponderous step taken. Even at this distance the Captain could clearly hear the occasional metal creak or squeal of their vast, lumbering chassis as they pushed ever onwards into the heart of the foe.

On the edge of his vision, the captain saw something; rather, someone. A shadowy figure on the crest of the hill, urgently gesturing at him. A warning?

The low whine of a missile barrage cutting through the air at speed answered the captain as he looked at the figure. He saw the danger too late.

Fire lit up the ridgeline, ripping tanks and bodies apart, tearing into the soldiers like the claws of some great beast. His soldiers. The backwash boiled down the hill in a fiery bloom, thundering into the captain. Then the world faded, darkening in every sense and–

–Saal Huulta awoke with a start, his body drenched in sweat. For a few seconds he blinked and shook his head, trying to remove the image of the dream from his mind. Ever since the Fontaine Case, these dreams of faces, places and spaces he knew he had never seen dogged him ceaselessly. No amount of counsel or therapy could get rid of those dreams, try as he might. He blink-switched on his Chrono Implant and cursed as he saw the time of 04:37 hours flashing on his retina, vivid green in a pitch-black room. His shift didn’t begin for another hour and a half, and he knew he couldn’t get back to sleep now. He might as well head in now, start his shift early. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Huulta lived alone, his life given over to his job and career. He glanced over to his only companion, a Tenocitan blue parrot named Inwit, currently sleeping in its cage on the other side of his bedroom.

He had a quick shower, struggled into his work clothes and headed for the lift. His hab was spacious and comfortable enough for a one-man unit in the corner of a massive city block, but it was a fair distance from work and he had a long drive every morning.

The streets were almost deserted as he drove into work. There were just a few stragglers around from the night before shambling under the pools of lumen-light. Work shifts didn’t change for another few hours, and most decent sorts were asleep. The other sort was his business.

Like everything on this world, his workplace was fortified, though more heavily than most buildings, with an armoury, training ground, barracks, firing range, scriptories, archives, warehouses, kitchens, gymnasia and garage concealed within its armoured walls. A city within a city. He went inside, signed in, and decided to get a cup of caf to try and jump-start his brain. As he stood in the near-deserted cafeteria with only a few hardy souls snatching an early morning meal, sipped his caf and tried to bully his brain onto alert mode, a voice came up from behind him.

“Saal, good morning. You’re up early, again.”

“Couldn’t sleep. Figured I’d start my shift early, get a head start on that paperwork.” He nodded at the speaker, while wracking his brain to remember who it was. Kolbe, one of his colleagues. He wasn’t close with the man, but he had worked with him a few times. Reliable if unimaginative, someone who'd spent too much time in the upperhive and away from the down and dirty.

“Whatever the big event the higher ups are working on, it's got to be important, especially with all the paperwork we’ve been handed. Who do you think it'll be?”

“Some off-worlder big-shot I’d expect, come to check if the gate is closed or not.” Huulta gestured at the roof, or rather what lay beyond the roof.

“You’re one to talk; you’re no more of a native than whoever’s visiting.”

He was right on that count. Huulta didn’t have the violet eyes of the natives, a reflection of the evil orb dominating the sky; his eyes were a light, piercing blue. Eyes that were very good at uncovering the truth no matter how well it was hidden.

“That reminds me, the Judge wants to see you as soon as you arrive. Something’s up.”

He downed his caf with a single gulp and ignoring the burning sensation in his throat headed for the Judge’s office.

The Judge, as fit for his station, had the biggest office at the very top of the courthouse. Unlike most Judges, his office was Spartan to the extreme. Behind his stone and steel desk was a massive armourglass window which offered stunning views of the city. the faint light of dawn was only now starting to touch the highest spires. A ceiling-to-floor bookshelf full of dusty old books set against one wall. The little library covered almost every topic in civilian and military law, many of them pre-Imperial. The other wall was bare metal with no ornamentation.

Above his desk was an ancient Boltgun, Umbra Ferrox pattern, which he used whenever he had to conduct a vital mission in person or during any major riots or rebellions in the dark bowels of the city. He hadn’t used it in many years. Flanking it hung a simple shock maul and a hefty power axe. All weapons of judgement.

The Judge sat at his desk examining a dataslate, and he set it down as he saw Huulta enter.

“Proctor Saal Huulta of the Arbites reporting sir,” he said crisply, snapping a salute. “What are my duties for today?”

“Huulta, you’re in early. Again.” The Judge sighed. “There is more to life than solving every case you can, you know?" Saal simply stood at attention, staring blankly at the Judge.

"Never mind. I have a task for you,” he continued. Judge Reinhold of the Arbites was a veteran of many thousands of cases - both in the courthouse and in the field - and an expert in almost every facet of Imperial Criminal Law. He was someone who would always get the job done as the head of the Tetra Arbites detachment. Saal had immense respect for him, and Reinhold mirrored that respect. There were very few he implicitly trusted more than Judge Reinhold.

“We received a report from the Orpo about five minutes ago.” The Orpo was the standard name for all the civilian police forces across the Cadian gate region, separate from the Arbites. Like the Arbites, their regional HQ was on Nemesis Tessera, though nowhere near as big as the massive city-sized fortress the Arbites had there. Saal had been there a few times, but he wasn’t particularly fond of the place. Too close to the Ordo.

The Judge turned to face the vast sprawl of the hive, his eyes sharply observing the spires as the light caught against their edges. A lone Ornithopter buzzed past in the distance.

“They found something down on level one hundred and seventy-three, sector G. They want someone from the Arbites to investigate, apparently there’s something about the nature of what they’ve found which demands our attention.”

Huulta acknowledged his orders, mentally preparing himself for the work to come, but the Judge wasn’t finished.

“Macharia will be hosting the most important of guests in a week’s time, and we need to ensure that law and order is upheld before, during and after their visit so I want this done by the book.”

“Can you spare any details about our mysterious guests sir? There had been plenty of rumours about the upcoming VIP visit to Macharia, some more outlandish than the others.”

Reinhold smiled slightly. It seemed hard to believe that his iron hard face could even crack a smile, but Huulta had known him longer than most. “I’m afraid not, but believe me, this is a once in a millennia occurrence. Now get to it, you have a job to do. You know our words.”

Huulta knew the words, knew them off by heart. They were the words he lived his life by. “It is our job to ensure the Lex Imperia is upheld here, as on all worlds. We discover the guilty. We deliver the punishment.” He saluted, and bowed out of the office. Immediately he headed straight for the armoury. Time to enter the deep end again.

Huulta attached the plates of his Carapace Armour to his body, one by one. The jackboots, the breastplate, the greaves, one by one they bonded to his body. It was a ritual to him, a way of mentally becoming one with the case, taking on the mantle of an Arbite. Finally and reverently, he placed the armoured black helmet crowned with an eagle onto his head, turning him from a man into a figure of terror. Once his helmet was on, it would not come off until his case was solved. That ritual had come from his greatest shame, the case that haunted still.

The moment his helmet came on, his trademark frown followed it. Huulta was almost as well known for his complete and total lack of other facial expressions as he was for his dedication or his superhuman shooting skills.

He checked Oathkeeper - he was far from the only Arbite to name his weapon – and waited for it to rectify his DNA profile, holstering his Power Maul while he did so. Oathkeeper’s DNA reader beeped on, and Huulta slung it over his shoulder. Gingerly he strapped on his Plasma Pistol, reciting an oath to calm its machine spirit, something other more rational types would laugh at. Though he was always in fear that it would overheat one day and melt his hand off, shooting the enemy with the power of a caged star was nothing to sniff at. He had delivered judgement with his Plasma Pistol before and it felt good, despite the risks.

Another day of duty. He had no idea of the hell he would be putting himself through over the next eight days, and how his world would be turned upside down by what was to come.

Hive Tetra was named after a similar hive on Terra, and like it shared the basic cone structure common to all hives. There the resemblance ended. Macharia’s Tetra was a fortress, its armoured outer skin studded with gun turrets and missile launchers, and the inside levels cunningly designed to ensure any attacker would find it too costly to take. A long held rumour said that the Primarch Peturabo had built the hive, as he had built all the fortifications around the warp storm that he had himself named near the end of the Crusade. Huulta could very well believe that.

The last time the forces of the Eye had reached Macharia was nearly three hundred years previously, and Tetra had been besieged for nearly a month before the Legions came to the rescue. Some parts of the outer walls still bore the scars of that previous effort by the Daemonic and Human forces of the Eye, an ever-present reminder of what they were facing. That was many years before Huulta had come to Tetra, and he wondered if at some point he too would have to face the might of a full scale Chaotic Incursion. Quietly he hoped that whatever he was investigating would have nothing to do with the Eye or anything about it. He didn’t need complications.

The lower storage hangers on level one hundred and seventy-three were where food, shells and other materials were stored in the event of a Siege. His destination, Storage Hanger 73-G-19 was empty, its cargo used up and the building sealed off to prevent lowerhive gangs from occupying it before it could be resupplied. The Hanger was within sight of the Hive edge, the sheer armoured outer skin and hatches to access the weapons turrets clearly visible from the road. Several hovercars in the black, white and blue of the Orpo sat outside, lighting up the pre-dawn gloom with the blue of their revolving lights. An Arbites patrol officer stood by the hovercars, waiting for his arrival.

“Trooper,” he said to the patrol officer with a nod as he dismounted from his ‘Lawmaster’ pattern patrol cycle. “What do you have for me?”

“Something down in that warehouse sir.” The officer gestured at the nearest building. “A body was found inside it. Normally the Orpo would deal with it, but the officer who found it called you down here. Apparently it’s…unusual.”

Huulta followed the officer to the empty warehouse, where he left him to carry on with his patrol. An Orpo officer with the bars of a senior sergeant on her sleeve was writing something down on a holopad flanked by several of her colleagues at the entrance, and she closed it as she saw Huulta approach.

“Orpo, it seems you have need of me. What have you found?”

A shadow passed over the woman’s face. The Orpo officer had come here expecting to find a crime of usual note, but her disquieted expression gave him pause; and for the first time that morning he wondered what he had walked into.

“It’s, uh…” The Orpo officer trailed off and swallowed hard; she lost focus for a moment as she thought about something else. “You should probably see for yourself, sir.”

“All right. Show me.”

The sound of his jackboots echoed in the empty warehouse as she led him in. For nearly a minute they walked, past empty container stacks until they reached an enclosure.

“The body’s around the corner sir. I would advise caution…”

Huulta was powering around the corner, but he stopped dead at what he saw. Saal Huulta had seen much during his long years of service, crimes and bodies most people would faint or retch at. But this was something else. Something so overpowering it was only an act of iron will that held him steady. Saal breathed deeply, and composed himself. Fresh eyes looked over the tableau, taking in details to avoid the terrible whole.

The victim was a man, although it was hard to tell from what was left. The man’s body had been clearly and clinically sliced open with great precision. Iron nails had been used to pin him to the wall. One through each ankle, another through the wrists, the limbs splayed out in the form of an X. Then, the skin of the torso had been cut into pointed pennants of skin that each came to a point; one to the right and to the left, another down across the groin and the last pulled up over the skull to rise over the dead man’s head. Four more nails secured the tips of these wet strips of flesh in place. The cavity of the man’s body was empty, the internal organs lying in a pile on the ground beneath the corpse, all laid out in a series of intricate symbols. A circle had been painted around the body in blood.

The man had been made into a star with eight points. The Octed, the symbol of the Primordial Annihilator, the mark of Chaos. Huulta sighed. This would not be his day.


	2. Day One: Tetra at Dawn

He’d left the body in the case of the Verispex Squad, who would now forensically examine the body to find out if the killers left anything behind. Not that there's much left to find, Huulta thought grimly.

He drove back to the precinct courthouse, sardonically nicknamed by the underhive as the ‘hall of justice,’ in silence. He was half-listening to the radio in his helmet in case something else came up. They had conducted a major sweep of the hive not a month ago for Chaos Cults, and turned up empty. Now this.

The duty room of the Tetra precinct courthouse occupied almost the entire seventh floor, a massive space where the entire hive was monitored and all crimes investigated. Outside, four guards perpetually stood watch at each door, two with standard Arbites Shotguns, and the other two carrying heavier and deadlier Boltguns. Even Huulta was not above suspicion as they checked his ID card and scrutinised it, ensuring he was who he said he was. Finally the doors opened with a snap of electronic bolts, and he was waved through.

A massive holo-desk dominated the center. It displayed a huge 3D model of Hive Tetra, small blue lights showing Arbite patrols as they made their way around the Hive, and red lights highlighting incidents and on-going investigations in particular areas. There was a new one down on level one hundred and seventy-three, where Huulta had found the body.

The main wall had an even larger map of the entire of Macharia, every hive lit up and data on all Arbite operations across the planet coasting alongside. The date sat over it, 2 612 266 M36, or in layman’s terms the sixth of Primus. One thousand, nine hundred and sixty seven years after the end of the Great Crusade and into the Pax Imperialis, the Imperial Peace won at such cost by the Legions of Humanity. In all that time the Imperium of Man had endured and thrived, despite the countless other wars and disasters which came and went with the passage of time. The Emperor’s dream had come true.

The duty officer, Zavi Rulae, sat overlooking it all from his high dais, and he waved to Huulta in greeting. Rulae was one of the very few Huulta respected, for his dedication to duty and willingness to speak his mind. Beneath him, a dozen servitors received and distilled the information on all goings on in the hive, the good and the bad, extracting from it what the Arbites needed to hear and transferring it to where it was needed.

The left wall had the incident board on it, a record of all the crimes within the last 24 hours which demanded the Arbites attentions. Hundreds of incidents lined the walls, updated every few minutes as more details came to light. The incidents for murders were split into four columns: Time, Fatalities, Location and Investigating Officer. The worst incident up - 3H 9D 2K - referred to a drug bust shootout down on level eighty-seven between the Orpo and one of the lowerhive gangs close to 23:00 the previous night in which three Orpo officers, nine gangers and two bystanders were killed and the Arbites had to be called as backup. It would be front page news in just a few hours when the papers came out.

The record for Huulta’s morning was listed at the bottom: 05:57 [O] 1H L13SG/Huulta [S]. The [O] for the source of the notification, the Orpo, and the [S] standing for the special circumstances of the case, the only indication of the true nature of what they had found there.

“Rulae, what have you got for me?” he asked as he approached the dais.

“Verispex have the DNA, they will have a result within a few hours. I’ve dragged up the missing persons list for you, but believe me it’s a long one, even for the last forty-eight hours. A hundred and nineteen potentials to troll through.”

Huulta nodded. “Thanks. I’ll get right onto it.”

Rulae shook his head. “Saal, you put in twice the hours of anyone else, at least. You take every single case that comes your way. Are you ever going to take a day off?”

Huulta had no answer for him. He just scowled as he headed off for the Judge’s office. But his words bit true. Reinhold had once described Huulta as ‘a tightly wound coil of anger, control and purpose’, and he was right. Anger at those who broke the law, control which dominated his life, and his purpose to protect and serve. Huulta lived for his job and the overwhelming compulsion to know, to understand, to seek the truth, to control the void in his soul which drove everything he did.

“Sir I…” he started as he entered.

“You want priority.”

“Yes sir. I know we have a backlog going all the way back to M35, and the Ordo is on your back for traitors, heretics and God-Emperor knows what else. But I have a feeling about this case, do this for me.”

“Already done Huulta.” Reinhold tapped something out on his holopad. His tone abruptly shifted, as he added.

“Huulta, this is Chaos we’re talking about, or at least it seems to be Chaos. I’m of half a mind to put a call out to Nemesis Tessera…”

“Look sir, the last thing we need is the bloody Ordo sniffing around. We can do this without their help.” He did not try to hide the distaste in his words.

“The Ordo was Malcador’s last gift to the galaxy, a way to safeguard his legacy and keep the galaxy safe from the threats within.”

“He was dying at the time sir. His mind was not in the right place.”

Reinhold stifled a laugh. “Huulta, we all like you, but I’d prefer you didn’t refer to the late Lord Regent of Terra in that way next time. He may have died nearly two thousand years ago, but his legacy lives on and you will refer to him with the respect his memory deserves. Got it?" he shook his head. "Good grief, you and your anti-Ordo streak will drive me round the bend before long.”

Huulta saluted and swiftly headed for his office. His opinions on certain matters and certain organisations and people were well known, and often landed him in trouble. It wasn’t his fault if he felt very strongly about them, and was willing to argue his point of view until the grox came home.

The office he shared with his partner was an airy room, a window behind each desk providing some ‘natural’ light from the great Lumen Strips outside. His half of the office was neat and tidy, a bookshelf full of law books and a few old history books stacked in nice neat rows. Huulta had a passion for history books, his favourite a well-worn copy of the War for Ullanor, a history of the famous campaign and triumph during the Great Crusade. He set Oathkeeper down, leaned back in his chair and set to work on the list of names. For nearly an hour he worked his way along, name by name, face by face. Hard to think that the ruined flesh he had found in that warehouse might be one of these people. His train of thought was only interrupted by the sound of the door and a booming voice.

“Saal, y’old bugga. Already mired in work? That helmet’s on for one thing, d’you sleep in it while on the case?”

Huulta got up and went over to greet his closest colleague and friend. Byrio Zofall was a bear of a man, a massive tangled black beard framing his face and a belly which could barely fit into his carapace armour. They had first been paired up nearly fifty years ago, and had developed a close working relationship since. Byrio was married with two children, and Huulta had often gone to dinner with the Zofalls.

“You know me too well, if there’s a case to be solved, I’m on it. How are the kids?”

“Doing well. Yoncy’s driving me up the wall, as usual. Teenage girls, who’d have ‘em?” They both laughed, but Saal felt something twinge within, like he had heard that phrase before. Huulta forgot about it as he explained the details of his case to Zofall, the mutilated body and the symbol of the Octed it made, what the Judge thought about it and the threat to get the Ordos involved. Zofall took it all in with a series of grunts. With his appearance and speech, there was no wonder his nickname was ‘the bear.’

The door banged open, revealing Judge Reinhold. Huulta immediately rose to his feet.

“Verispex has come through, and we have the identity of the victim. Name of Zahael Zoernia, a Calibanian tradesman.”

Huulta cursed at the name, or rather where the name had come from. “Does this mean we’re going to have to…?”

“Yes. If someone from a Legion homeworld is found murdered in a suspected Chaos ritual, then we will have to inform the Legion representative on Cadia.”

“First the Ordos, now the bloody Legions. The only thing which could make my day worse is if the bitches were also involved.” Huulta snarled. He didn’t need this level of confusion, not this early into the case. He needed control.

Zofall grimaced at Huulta’s words, while Reinhold shook his head. “Please Saal; don’t start another rant about how much you dislike them. Hell, you’re the only person I’ve ever met, maybe the only person on the entire of Macharia who has an active dislike for the Royal Daughters, which borders on obsession sometimes. That sort of thing gets you in trouble with the Ordo. The only reason you haven’t been taken away for questioning is because I’ve interceded on your behalf every bloody time.”

“And I thank you for that sir. I may dislike the Royal Bitches intensively, I may think they’ve never done anything remotely good for the Imperium unlike their fathers, I may state that they’ve never proven themselves worthy of the accolades we seem to throw at them daily and I may question why anyone even cares about those angsty fugs, but I’m not about to do any more than air that discontentment. I’m not like any of those nutters who voiced their opinions with a gun, especially not the Dark Ones or the Grey Ghost. Hell, the last one was over three hundred years ago, and she shot herself before they could arrest her, and even the Grey Ghost was finally hunted down by the Night Haunter after he tried to kill them all...” Huulta stopped as he realized just how far over the edge he’d gone.

The silence was deafening, the long pause as the other two just glared at him. Zofall was the first to break the silence. “Saal, for th’sake of our long friendship, would ya please shut the fug up?” he sighed audibly. “Your shtick got old forty years ago. I get it, ya hate ‘em. I don’t need t’be reminded.”

“Me either.” Reinhold now joined in. His voice was soft, but there was a clear undercurrent of authority to it that made Saal cringe. “And as for the Ghost, I read the report you wrote on him, and the other two. And I am the reason that report didn’t get you sent to a camp. Remember that before you go off on another rant about them.”

Saal grimaced. That was a sore point. “I’ve never forgotten sir. Plus no matter what you think of my personal opinions you need me, no one in a thousand light years will be stubborn enough to see this case through.”

“No there isn’t.” Reinhold admitted. “Very well Saal, I’ll let you get to it. Don’t worry about the Ordos, the Legions or anything else, I’ll handle it. You just do that thing you do, and find our killer. Check out the victim’s hab first, see if you can uncover any clues there.”

Huulta nodded and strode off. His task truly began now.

Zahael Zoernia lived in a fashionable block on level twenty-three, close enough to the hive edge and high up enough to receive some sun from the massive armoured windows in the hive skin, which was in itself a mark of status in a hive society. Huulta obtained the master key from the hab-block supervisor, who confirmed he had last seen Zoernia two days previously as he was heading out to the level forty dockyards. Huulta entered, weapon held at the ready but he was confronted by nothing. 

A brief search confirmed that the hab was empty. Zoernia's dwelling had five rooms, an airy sitting room, a kitchen, a bedroom, a longue and a bathroom. Zoernia was obviously pretty well off to be affording such a large Hab, and such wealth could easily make enemies. Was that the reason he had been betrayed him to the Chaos cult which had sacrificed him? 

Questions were all well and good, but what he needed were the answers, and hopefully some of them would be in here for him. He first checked out the sitting room, which was in perfect order. He could find nothing out of the ordinary or out of place. One wall was dominated by a large portrait of Aldurukh, the Capital of Caliban and fortress monastery of the First Legion. Huulta’s lip curled in distaste. It had been nearly two thousand years since the crusade’s end, and in all that time the Imperial Army had proved time and time again it could do the job by itself without any help from transhuman supermen. The Legions were an anachronism; a relic of a more brutal age that should have been disbanded millennia ago.

Moving on, he quickly searched the other rooms, and once again, he found nothing. Everything was in perfect order, clean and tidy. The man must have been a fanatic for tidiness when he was alive. Huulta counted himself lucky he had come here first, the Orpo had a bad habit of destroying more clues than they uncovered whenever they did a search. 

After nearly an hour of toil, Huulta came to a conclusion: there was no evidence to suggest he was kidnapped or taken from here. Everything was seemingly in perfect order; there was nothing to suggest the horrific fate which had befallen this man. Nothing he could see on the surface. But he knew there was always something hidden away. 

Sinking onto the couch, he stared thoughtfully at the holovision screen, trying to marshal his thoughts. There had to be something here; he just hadn’t seen it yet. He could feel it in his gut. He’d always had that ability, an almost sixth sense when there was something he’d missed, something important, that ability to see things others tried to hide. It was one of the reasons his record was so exemplary, why only once had he failed to solve a case. 

It clicked. He stood up, turned around and grabbed the portrait of the Rock. Lifting it off, he was rewarded with the confirmation of his suspicion. Behind the picture was a wall safe. Not a very imaginative hiding place, but still a good place to hide valuables or other sensitive items. Now all he would have to do was crack it, and find out what Zoernia was hiding in there. 

Huulta reached down and unhooked a special item from his belt, one which he usually wouldn’t bother with, but which now came in handy. 

The rota-cracker was a special instrument designed to crack a safe with ease, though it was slow, time consuming and didn’t leave the safe very intact. Almost useless for thieves, but the perfect tool for the forces of law. He clamped it to the safe’s dial, switched it on and sat down to wait while it did its job. The sound of its lascutter keened up as it began to work. 

The wait was excruciating, and Huulta felt his ire rise as the device did its job. If only they had a faster model, something which wouldn’t leave him stewing in his juices while he waited. 

Finally the whining ceased and Huulta went over to unclamp the rota-cracker. It had bored a hole through the safe’s outer shell, and unlocked the safe from the inside. The safe was ruined, of course, but he now had access. 

With a creak the safe opened, and Huulta reached in. Inside there was no gold, or any precious items. Instead there were wads of paper, probably containing his records of trade, the items he had imported and exported to and from Caliban, as well as a dataslate, encrypted. But Huulta smiled in triumph regardless, this was something far more important than gold or jewels. There were clues in these papers, secrets for him to unlock which could help him identify why this man had been taken and chosen for such a fell rite. He would take them back to his office and spend a few hours poring over them, sorting the important from the chaff and finding the truth. 

His sense of triumph was abruptly ended with the beeping sound of the comms implant coming from the flesh of his arm. Only the most dedicated Arbites willingly had the tools of their trade implanted into their very flesh, forever binding themselves to their duty. Naturally, Huulta had two, one embedded into the flesh of each arm so that no matter what he would always have access. He lifted his left arm up to his face. 

“Saal, the Verispex have finished examining the body. We’re waiting for you in the courthouse Morgue with the report.” Zofall’s voice said. 

“On my way.” Huulta disconnected, gathered up the slate and the other documents and left the Hab, making sure to close the door and seal it with an Arbites notice. No-one would dare go in there now. And even if they did, he had all the evidence he needed now. 

The morgue of the precinct courthouse was buried deep beneath the main building, almost as far down as one could go. Only the auxiliary generators and self-contained life support systems were lower. Inside that space of white tiles and harsh fluorescent lights what was left of the body lay on a slab, stitched back up into the shape the man it once held. Pictures of him in life sat beside images of the murder scene. The man had been handsome once, before some sick bastard had cut him apart. 

Dr. Eisler, the chief of the Tetra Verispex, gestured at the body as he spoke with Huulta and Zofall. Eisler was an ugly son of a bitch with a squashed nose and thin lips, but there were few better than him in uncovering the methods and means of murder. 

“Murder weapon was not your normal knife. Analysis of the cutting gave up a pattern that appears consistent only with a mono-molecular blade.” 

“And how common are those around here?” Zofall asked. 

“You’re seriously asking that? The only ones around are either trophy weapons taken from renegade Eldar, or else ex-legionary weapons such as scout combat knives.” 

“Either way, rare as fug and most likely unregistered.” Huulta tugged on his armoured gloves. “What about the time of death?” 

Eisler sniffed. “Hard to gauge, but my best guess would be between midnight and 04:00 hours this morning. Can’t get it any closer I’m afraid.” 

Huulta thought about it, but couldn’t find anything in that time which would shed more light on the murder. They knew who was responsible, but they didn’t know why, or who the specific culprits were. Nothing made sense. To use a term, it was chaos. 

Saal and Zofall took their leave, Eisler informing them if he found anything else of use he would contact them immediately. No sooner did he return to his office than Huulta sank back into his chair, and idly began to sort through the papers he had removed from the victim’s house. 

“Saal, what do you think it can be?” Zofall asked. 

“It’s a ritual, it can’t be anything else. I just wish I knew what that ritual is all about. Are they just trying to curry favour with their gods, or is it something worse?” He added, as he gestured at the scattered files. As well as the tide of paperwork from the murder itself and the evidence from the deceased’s house, packets of fiche and other picts had arrived from a couple of the sub-precincts from across the planet, automatically flagged by the reports of the incident sent out on the planetwide watch-wire. Not one matched what had happened here. There had been several murders in the Hives of Macharia, but none as gruesome, none as inexplicable. If it was a full blown chaos cult, then they were taking great pains to hide themselves and their crimes away. 

“Well, at least I found this in the deceased’s house,” Huulta gestured to the sheath of papers on his desk. “Papers which belonged to the victim. Should be a clue of two in here somewhere, a hint as to why he was taken. Whoever did it; they have to have their reasons.” 

“Chaos doesn’t need reasons Saal. That’s why it’s called ‘Chaos’. But they won’t have chosen this particular man at random; the amount of preparation alone tells us that.” Zofall had a point. 

For the next few hours Huulta threw himself mind and soul into working through the sheaths of paper and digital records, one by one reading and scanning them for anything which might give a hint. They seemed mundane, papers about business transactions, payments made and loans outstanding, the usual sort of business dealt with by a trader. Somewhere within he was something he could use, he could feel it. 

He didn’t notice the hours pass; he only briefly nodded to Zofall as he went home to his family and then settled back to work. Time and again he promised himself he would stop for a bite to eat or a quick break after this particular sheet, but every time he’d look at the next one and think, ‘just one more, there might be a clue there’ and one became ten became a hundred. The world vanished, all that mattered was the papers and the clues he knew were held within. 

Suddenly the door banged open, and Reinhold walked in. He glared at Huulta. 

“Bloody hell, it’s nearly twenty-two hundred! Saal, go home. You’ve been here triple overtime and you have your religious services in the morning, the only time you ever take off.” His eyes flicked over the vast pile of papers on Saal’s desk. 

“Dammit, if I didn’t bloody well force you out, you’d move in and live here with all the rookies and support staff. Even I have a life outside these four walls you know, you don’t seem to.” 

Huulta nodded, but after the Judge had left he continued to work for another hour until Reinhold came in and almost forcibly dragged him out of his office, scowling all the while. Huulta’s complete and total dedication to any case he worked on was one of the reasons he had such an exemplary record, but the fact he let his cases take over his life was a cause for concern for Reinhold, especially after the Fontaine case. 

The drive home was in silence, and once there Huulta spent another two hours with the material he had been allowed to bring home with him, but still there was no sign of anything which could lead him to the perpetrators. Finally he was forced to call it a day as the clock reached midnight. He needed to get some rest, and prepare for the next day’s investigations. 

His Hab was very small, and even more Spartan then the Judge’s office in the Precinct Courthouse. It had only four rooms, and the absolute barest minimum in furniture and necessities. Huulta only ever came here to sleep. Even in the void between cases he preferred the Courthouse. 

Saal emerged from the shower and stopped at the mirror, his eyes catching on the many scars that latticed over his body. Almost every inch of his body was marked by scars. Some were relics of past fights and disturbances during his many years in the Arbites, barfights and scuffles, those who resisted arrest, the usual marks of service. And then there were the others, whose origin he couldn’t place. The deep gouge which stretched from behind his left eye to his jaw and framed the left side of his face, usually hidden beneath his helmet. Zofall had given him the nickname of ‘scarface’ because of it when they had first met, before they had become friends. The loop just below his right elbow, something had nearly taken the arm clean off at some point he couldn’t recall. He didn’t know when he had done it, but he had a good idea why. 

The void. It always came back to the void, the eternal emptiness which had always haunted him, the feeling that something vital was missing, that he wasn’t all there. It was the one thing in his life he couldn’t control, and he had tried every method, which must have included cutting at one point, but none of them had ever worked. Though control eluded him, he had found a way to harness the void, turn it into his prime motivator, the thing which drove him and focused him in his pursuit of duty. If only he could harness his other problem as well. 

Huulta flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. He didn’t want to sleep, didn’t want the dreams which haunted him every time his eyes closed, but sleep took him anyway and the dreams returned. 


	3. Day Two: Among the Faithful

As the sunlight touched the upper spires of Hive Tetra, the valleys below them rang to the sound of hymns, a sound now long extinct in the wider Imperium under the aegis of its Truth. But here at the mouth of the great Eye, faith was not the forbidden thing it was elsewhere. Here the Imperial Truth was rendered moot by the truth of the cosmic hell which glared down at them, threatening the extinction of all they held dear. Here the power of faith was a safeguard against the Eye and the powers lurking within, which they stood eternal and vigilant guard against to keep those powers contained. So once a week on the seventh day, many thousands of people trudged to their local place of worship and filled the air with songs of praise. 

Among their number was Saal Huulta. 

The Chapel of the Pious Heart was a small establishment huddled amidst the towering hab-blocks on level twenty-seven. Next to the rising pillars of rockrete and plasteel the two story dwelling of whitewashed walls and ceremonial signs of the Aquila seemed incongruous. But to the citizens who built and maintained it in the face of official indifference, it was a place of peace, reflection and a chance to gird the defences within. Everything Huulta needed to keep going. 

Several faiths shared the spires of Tetra, but the Pious Heart was dedicated to the most numerous and controversial among them: the creed of the Lectitio Divinitatus. It was no secret the Emperor disliked Himself being regarded as a God, but the faith which had emerged in His shadow had refused to die, and in a few rare places in the Imperium such as tolerant Ultramar and the 'safe' haven of the Cadian gate it thrived and prospered.

Huulta arrived slightly late, allowing time for everyone else to get settled in without the disruptive presence of an Arbite. The din of the singers masked his entrance. He looked for a particular person amidst the assembled devotees, and spotting her he took his customary place beside her. She briefly glanced at him and the ghost of a smile crossed her lips before returning to singing the hymn of the Emperor Ascendant. Huulta joined in, adding his gravelly voice to the chorus and letting his concerns fade away for a time, though they would never truly leave him. He pulled out the old Aquila which had his been for as long as he could remember and then some, and held it in his hands as he sang. It was his oldest and dearest possession, the chain tarnished with age, but the bird itself was still unspoilt silver, and sometimes when it caught the light he swore it glowed from within.

It was that item, as much as anything else which had led Huulta to the God-Emperor. He could not claim any grand tales of coming to his faith, and even now he could not shake a sense of ambivalence he felt towards the Master of Mankind. But he had seen the God-Emperor protect those who called upon Him, and that as much as anything made up his mind. 

The service came to an end, and the people filed out to return to their secular duties. The woman waited until the chapel was nearly empty before addressing her erstwhile companion.

“Proctor, I’m glad to see you. Busy last week?” 

“Overtime, and you really should call me Saal. You have me call you Magda.” 

“Common courtesy, Saal. Happy now?” Magda glared icily at Huulta, though there was the hint of a smile playing along the edge of her lips. She was an elegant woman of advancing age, and with her cosmetically sculpted face and general air of wealth she seemed out of place at the Chapel of the Pious Heart, a penthouse occupant on the lowest floor. She had been coming to this particular chapel for the last three years at his suggestion, and her faith was much stronger than Saal’s. But then she had good reason for it. 

Saal nodded stiffly. A nagging thought pressed against his mind, something to do with Magda he had forgotten about due to his work. 

“Are you on a case?” she offered. 

Saal nodded again, this time less stiffly. “Murder. The worst kind. I might have to miss next Sunday’s services, and the Sunday after depending on how bad it gets. Say a little prayer for me if I do not show.” 

“You always know I will. The Emperor protects." Magda made the sign of the Aquila.

Companionable silence came between them as they watched the last few people file out. Saal had very few friends beyond the Courthouse walls, and Magda was unique among them. 

Once the last parishioners were gone, Saal broke the silence. 

“Any news from the top?” 

“The visit, that’s all there is to hear about. The whole hive will be on lockdown for the duration, no-one in, no-one out. It's that serious. The Governor hasn’t even told us yet who the guest or guests are, but it has to be someone at the very top of the Imperium to warrant such security. If I had to hazard a guess, one of the Primarchs.” 

Saal nodded in agreement. That was his suspicion as well. Given the absolute importance of the Cadian Gate region to the overall stability of the Imperium, a tour every now and then to raise morale and investigate the state of the defences was always on the cards, and this would be no different. A brief flutter of activity and it would all be over and he could get on with the business of upholding the law. 

"Do you think what you're investigating is linked to the visit? It would be a perfect time to strike, what with all the disruption." 

Huulta scratched his chin. "Throne, I hope not. Last thing I want is to get caught up in all this. You're the spireborn, it's your territory, not mine." 

Magda tossed her head. "Not down here. Down here I'm not a scion of one of the oldest military lines on Tetra with a seat on the Council. I can be myself without the mask of nobility on." 

Huulta suddenly remembered what his nagging thought was about and gave a relieved sigh. “Before I forget, this is for you.” 

Saal reached into his hipbag and gently extracted a single rose, white with a spot of red in the centre. Synthetic of course, real roses were something only spire-nobles like Magda herself could afford. “It was last Monday; it would have been her nineteenth, wouldn’t it?” 

Magda’s eyes glazed over at the sudden flash of memory. “Yes,” she said softly, taking the rose in her hands, “that would have been Emilia’s birthday." A sheen of bitter pain crossed her face. "You’re the only one who still remembers what happened to her. You’re the only one who still cares. Nobody else ever says a word. It's like they want to forget the whole sordid buisness.” 

Saal looked into her eyes as he spoke. “I can never forget her, Magda. I will never know what it was like for you to lose her, but she’s affected me as well. As long as her killer breathes, my work will remain unfinished.” 

She had heard him say that before, but every time he said it with the same meaning as he had that first time. Reinhold had all but demanded he close the case after nine months with no leads and the disaster of the ‘intervention’, and Huulta wanted to break the news personally. For both of them it was a loss and they bonded over it. Since then despite the threat of sanction should they ever be found out, they maintained an informal friendship that suited both parties. 

Did Reinhold know? Huulta sometimes suspected. The Judge had not made his way to the very top without a sharpness and a keen sense of uncovering hidden truths. But no word had ever been passed between them, and Huulta took that as unofficial sanction. Having a contact in the highest tier of Tetra's society was certainly beneficial to the Arbites as a whole.

The Chapel was nearly empty, and Magda began to make her way to the entrance, Saal walking along beside her. “You are a good man, Saal Huulta, no matter what you may think to yourself at times. I wish she had got the chance to meet you.” 

“If she were still alive, you would have had no need to meet me, and I can’t say that is a bad thing. Now, you should head back uphive before someone recognizes you.” 

As Magda gave a nod in reply Huulta's occular implant sounded. Magda gave a soft smile and a small wave to Huulta as she turned to depart. 

Cursing the interruption, he tapped his ear in reply and heard Zofall’s voice echo down his ear canals. 

“Saal? I know you're occupied, but you’re needed urgently on level thirty-nine. Another body has been found, and you’ll want to see this.”


	4. Day Two: The investigation begins

Tetra was a grim and brooding place even in times of peace. The immense armoured fortresses hanging from the ceilings of each level, the careful geometric layout of the streets engineered for urban defence creating a labyrinth easy to get lost in. Every hab-block was a colossal bunker complex as much as a dwelling place. It all led to an atmosphere of looming danger and that feeling, never very far away, that at any time the sirens would sound and life would come crashing down around their ears.

Hab Block 1119-C loomed large over Saal, and in its impassive glare he felt a shiver run down his spine. After nearly a hundred years on the job the sight of these monuments to the Imperium's determination to defend its hard-won empire should have lost its edge. But the sheer scale in their construction, the magnitude of their intent resounded within Huulta. It was something he tried to emulate in his own line of work.

Zofall stood in the lobby, the civilians within giving him a wide berth. To have an Arbite, a symbol of Imperial Justice in their foyer was omen enough that something terrible was afoot. “Technician found the victim, and I was closest to the scene. When I saw it, I knew you'd want to see it, too.” His gaze shifted to the shotgun at Huulta’s side. “Why d'you have your shotgun out, Saal? You think the perpetrators're still there, waitin' for us to come back? Maybe kill us too?” he growled.

"When you're dealing with fanatics, and especially those addled by the darker powers, it never hurts to keep on the alert."

"If they were moving about so openly, I think we'd be in a lot more trouble than that." Zofall replied as they strode to the turbolifts.

Straight to business. "So, who is the victim?"

Zofall pulled out his dataslate. "Saepthus Sybort. Senior technician for this block." He handed the slate over, and Huulta stared down at a pale figure with craggy skin and a shock of stark-black hair. More telling to Huulta's eyes was the notable augmentics implanted into his skull. One eye was a series of glass lenses, and several plates uncovered by synthskin protruded from the side of his head.

"Those implants aren't civilian standard are they?" There was a sinking feeling in Saal's chest.

"No. Legion issue. Ex Xth legion Serf."

Outwards Huulta kept up his stone face. Inside a barrage of varied expletives poured through his head. Another victim from a fugging Legion Homeworld! One could be written off as coincidence. Two, and there could be no coincidences. There would be a referral to the Legion representatives on Cadia, and another step closer to Ordo intervention.

An intervention which would ruin everything.

Zofall gave Huulta a sympathetic smile as he continued, “He was the chef technician in this hab block. Went off on a maintenance patrol and never came back, and then one of his underlings went searching and found’im.”

The lift doors opened to the stark metal hallways of a maintenance area. Zofall made a beeline down the corridors until he came to an area marked off with Orpo Barricade tape.

The victim lay there behind it, his body propped up against the wall. Written in blood in vertical columns either side his body were some markings that made Huulta's eyes water just by gazing upon them. He forced himself to keep looking. The victim's clothes were unusually free of blood. His mortal eye had been gouged out, leaving a bloody cavity screaming out at the void. One hand, his augmetic one of shining metal was held out away from his body, clutching something as if in offering. Droplets of blood glistened from it in the half-light.

Huulta could see enough of the red meat in his hands to know what it was.

Gingerly he reached out, and gently poked the shirt above the right side of the victim's chest. As he suspected, there was nothing beneath it.

"How did they remove the heart? Has a murder weapon been recovered?"

"Take a look inside, Saal." Zofall murmured.

Saal gently unbuttoned his overcoat and peeled it back. The moment he saw the wound he knew this was no ordinary murder. It was a great hole punched right through his sternum and ribs, shattering the bone. That must have taken immense blunt-force trauma to achieve. And yet the wound did not go all the way through, ruling out a blade as the obvious culprit.

“Based on the preliminaries the block medicae carried out, his heart was ripped out of his chest while he was still alive.”

"It was his arm," Huulta hissed. "They had him tear his own heart out."

"This confirms it." Zofall's voice was low, almost a feral rumble. "Something is rotten in the Hives of Macharia."

They were barely back at the Courthouse when the Judge's summons came. Huulta was expecting it and dreading it at the same time.

Reinhold lost no time. “First Zahael Joernia, a Calibanian trader. Now Saepthus Sybort, a Medusan engineer. You seem to have a knack for uncovering the worst possible cases, Saal, you know that?”

"That's why you keep me around Sir." Huulta replied.

Reinhold gave an amused cough before continuing. “You know what I've had to do Saal. There are no coincidences in this line of work, and now it looks like we have a substantial cult problem on our hands. Right under our very noses." A hint of steel entered his voice.

Huulta spoke up. "We need to act quickly, track down some leads on the cult while their trail is still fresh. In acting this openly they've overplayed their hand, and if we move now we can nip the threat in the bud before it can carry out whatever plot they are hatching."

"You enthusiasm is acknowledged Huulta, but this is a problem much bigger than any one person can handle." The Judge's voice softened as the words Huulta feared finally came out. “Saal, I have contacted Nemesis. The Ordo are sending someone to take on the case."Reinhold saw the pained snark crossing what was exposed of Huulta's face, and added, "With the vagaries of warp travel, it will be at least a few days before they arrive. I trust you will know what to do with the case while we wait for the Ordo to arrive. Am I understood Proctor?”

Huulta threw a snappy salute. "Perfectly, sir." and left Reinhold’s office.

Zofall was waiting outside. “So, the Ordo gonna take over the case?” he rumbled.

"When they get here. Until then I am to carry on with my investigation as normal."

Zofall gave a sly grin. "Ah, I see what t'Judge means. So what do we do now?"

"'we', Zofall?"

"Afraid you're sharing this one, Saal. If you don't mind?"

It was at times like this that Huulta lamented the loss of his ability to smile.

“We won’t get anything more from the body until Eisler is finished with it. Fortunately I already have one line of inquiry to work though, the papers I recovered from Zahael’s hab. Somewhere in there should be evidence of how he was ensnared by whatever cult lies behind his death. And what about you?"

“I gotta head back to the hab block, ave to de-brief the command staff of the building. I'll start asking questions there.” Zofall grimaced. “Don’t forget to get ahold of me when Eisler is ready.”

"Of course. Good luck Zofall." And the two parted, each to his own appointed task. They would root out these heretics, and do it before the Ordo could swoop in.

The hours ticked by as Saal poured over the documents of transactions, meetings and arrangements that made up the life of the man once known as Zael Joernia. His life was not unlike Saal's own, one where every minute was carefully planned and filled in, a watchmaker's time where everything worked in perfect, synchronized harmony.

But in all the papers, Saal could find nothing that shouted out at him as unusual. Nothing that suggested that the writer of these papers was shortly to be slaughtered in the most brutal way as fodder for powers beyond the comprehension of mortal man.

Still Saal persisted. Not until every last possible piece of evidence had been carefully sifted through would he halt in his work. Dogged and persistent were two words often attributed to him, not always positively. Joernia, Sybort and any others fallen victim would get justice for what had been done to them, delivered at the hands of Oathkeeper if possible.

It was only when a beeping noise in his ear implant nearly threw him out of his chair that he realized how much time had past. Cursing internally, he answered it. Eisler was done with the autopsy of Sybort and ready to present his findings. Now, hopefully some evidence they could use. Immediately Saal muttered a brief voice message to Zofall informing him that Eisler was ready for them.

Nearly an hour later Zofall joined Huulta at the entrance to the morgue, a stark white door like an entrance to the afterlife. This was the second time in the last two days he had been brought here.

Huulta didn’t like the morgue; it was a morbid place, always cold and heavy with the scent of death, even above the smell of disinfectants. So many lives ended up here, so many stories concluding with a body in this cold space illuminated by the harsh glow of lumen-strips, a body that nearly always was then recycled into yet more Soylens to keep the population fed. Saal didn't want to make these visits a regular occurance.

“Let’s get this over with.” Zofall grunted beside him, wrapping his Proctor’s robes around his ample frame.

Eisler stood beside the body the same way he had done the previous day. He waited for them to join him before launching into the details.

“You’ve already worked out what killed your victim, but reiterating it, severe blunt force trauma to the chest, punching through his breastbone and ribs. That alone would have killed him, but he was on some kind of drug which allowed him to several seconds longer. His heart was removed while he was still alive, according to the bruising upon it. You already have the murder weapon,” gesturing at the detached bionic arm lying beside the body, “So there’s little else I can give you at this time. If you expected me to have some fancy new piece of evidence which will help you find the killer, forget it.”

“I’d never expected that.” Huulta said.

Zofall laughed a deep booming laugh which echoed through the empty space and startled Eisler.

Eisler growled before continuing. “No defensive wounds on the subject, no bruising or other marks of struggle, so your victim was killed without a fight. We found some sort of toxin in his bloodstream, but we couldn't get any immediate results and the in-depth tests won’t be back for several hours.”

Saal nodded. “Thanks Eisler. Keep us informed when the details arrive.”

"So what do we do now?" Zofall asked Saal after they escaped.

"Sybort's contacts. There must be something in there to tell us where he was and who he was meeting with when not on duty."

"Any luck with the papers from the Calibanian victim?"

"Nothing yet." Saal growled. "But there's a lot more to go through. Something in there holds the key, I'm sure of it. I'll keep working on it. You go home, get some time with the family. You need it."

After a brief pause Zofall turned to Huulta.

“Saal, you ain’t been over for dinner for months and Illana is always asking, ‘when are you going to bring Saal around again?’"

"She isn't asking that at all, is she?"

Zofall gave a pained smile. "Not really, no. But after the investigator arrives you're going to need a distraction to take your mind off things."

"And subjecting your family to yet more of my company is the answer?"

"Of course." Zofall grinned.

Before he knew it Saal was nodding, and Zofall's smile seemed to beam down like sunlight from the heavens.

“I’ll have Illana cook us a meal fit for a Primarch, or a Royal Daughter.” With that he dodged out, neatly avoiding Saal’s scowl at his parting comment.

Remembering the experiences of the previous nig ht, Huulta was determined that he would finish at his allotted time for once. He reached over for one last piece of paper from the Joernia pile, one last transaction the trader had processed.

The word screamed out at him from the painting with all the impact of a bullet.

Sybort.

It was an order for assorted electronic components for the maintenance of the technical systems of  Hab Block 1119-C. Agrippina-issue, expensive components .

To Joernia just another business transaction. To Huulta, a clue.  A link between the two victims. 

_There are no coincidences when Chaos is involved._

A delivery address was enclosed. A supply warehouse far down the Hive.

Tomorrow, he would pay it a visit.


	5. Day Three: Downhive

It was a poor place, buried in the shadow of gold-plated towers. A vision of a past the new master of mankind had sworn to expunge. And yet for all his purported efforts here it lay, beneath the very nose of the Imperial Palace. A slum-city of the type common in man's long and sordid history. A vision of hell with an urban face, a twisted maze of ramshackle buildings cobbled together by the hands of their desperate inhabitants. Flickering illumination of fire and shadow from the drumfires and hooded lanterns created a strobe-like effect on the walls.

He fled through those streets in terror. Something, someone, was on his tail. He had to lead them away, away from the woman with the hypnotic eyes who haunted his thoughts. She needed to survive, but he couldn't even remember her name.

The nightmare ended without warning. He flew forwards, sending sheets and pillow flying. All was black confusion. No order, just the chaos of the mind.

Then like a smoothly oiled machine, it all snapped into place. He was Saal Huulta, Arbite, servant of the immortal God-Emperor on the planet of Macharia. He was strong, devoted, a champion of law and justice. The nightmares were nothing, just painful reflections of all he had seen and heard in his years of service. He could handle them.

He would handle them.

The panic, the fear and the terrible feeling of powerlessness melted away. Huulta knew they would be back.

At the Precinct Courthouse Huulta sent forward an Approved Action form. Then he finished his reports on the previous day's activities, and with all the distractions done made his way to the armoury.

The Hives of Marcharia were a drilled and regimented machine next to the teeming towers of iniquity found on other Hive worlds the Imperium over. Even so, they too shared in the sins common to all Hives. Lawless Underhives beset with criminal syndicates and gangs. They always appeared whenever man built his cities, and no society had ever completely banished them. A careful balance had to be maintained, lest the friction between them make an opening for the cults of Chaos to exploit.

Arbites were never welcome down in their territory. Huulta intended to make himself welcome.

The armoury sergeant waved him over and Huulta handed over a list of requested equipment.

"Are you sure you don't need more breaching charges?" The Sergeant asked with frown.

"Four is satisfactory. I'm not there to level the _entire_ building."

Shaking his head, the armoury sergeant walked away. After several minutes he returned bent over a tray full of ordinance and munitions.

"I hope to fug you know what you're doing with all this." The Sergent remarked. Huulta just nodded and began loading up.

Gas Grenades, Stun Grenades, Executioner cognis-guided rounds and frag shells for Oathkeeper. Everything one would need to face off against a well-entrenched foe.

He returned to his office to find Zofall at his desk, the Verispex reports in his meaty paws.

"I see you've found something to investigate," Zofall set the report aside.

“Level ninety-eight. There's a Warehouse down there our victims used to store materials bartered between them. It’s the only link between them I have thus far uncovered, and the best lead we’ve got so far.”

Zofall struggled to his feet. “Let me come with you Saal. If you're planning on going up against possible hostiles you’ll need all the help y’can get.”

Saal shook his head. “You have an important job you're doing right now."

"Really Saal? You want me to stay here an' pour over this pile of trader's scribbles?"

"Those scribbles could still be hiding something. We need to cover all our bases in this case." Huulta inclined his head. "Zofall, you know me. I have handled far worse down there."

Zofall let our a wheezing sigh. "By the Throne Saal, please don't let me have to say 'I told you so' when you get back."

"Feel free to do so," Huulta said as he turned to go. "I'll deserve it. But all probability, it'll be an uneventful visit, riling up the gangs but nothing worse." Now those lips twitched ever so much. "Let them cower, let them know the Law is always watching, waiting."

"Always riling the lawbreakers up, eh Saal?" By the time those words had left Zofall's mouth, Huulta was already gone.

Beneath the living quarters and barracks blocks, the fortresses and factories, lay hundreds of square miles of storage warehouses. Supplies enough to feed a hundred armies were kept in storage here, a labyrinth of provender silos, fuel tanks, granaries, ammo dumps and everything in between. The topmost levels of those warehouses included storage space for the hive populace above, with one warehouse rented and registered to one Xael Zoernia.

This was also an area frequented by the numerous elements of Tetra's black market, smuggling contraband up and down the hive. Many warehouses here were used by the gangs to store illegal goods and supplies as they passed up the chain of distribution. Many of Huulta's previous actions had been in raids against such hauls.

There was no natural light this deep in the guts of the mammoth arcology, only the harsh brightness of massive roof-mounted lumen strips that simulated, however poorly, the rhythms of the sun far above them. The harsh fluorescence they threw out brought the corridor of wide plasteel roads, lined either side by floor to ceiling warehouse blocks, the uniformity reminding Huulta of the ranks of filing cabinets in the Precinct Courthouse records room.

Some areas, those responsible for the needs of the population above, were full of foremen, servitors, freight trucks and goods trains hauling away the megatonnes needed to feed and fuel the millions above every day. Beyond them, in the areas sealed and untouched unless in an emergency, was a ghost city of empty roads and artificial silence. Many buildings in these areas were tagged with graffiti and gang slogans, tell-tale signs of the shift from order to disorder in these parts of the hive.

Disorder was one thing Huulta truly despised.

Once the Augur system chirped, telling him we was in the right place, Huulta coasted to a stop and dismounted from his Lawmaster. The crunch of his boots upon the plascrete streets seemed to echo as he walked towards Zoernia's warehouse, Oathkeeper resting in his arms.

The lack of any observable human activity was both concerning and reassuring. If this is a dead end, nobody will be here. Or there was an ambush waiting for him. That was always a possibility.

Warehouse 16703-B-37A loomed before him. Like everything on Tetra, the warehouse could double as a fortress so it could be garrisoned and defended in the case of an enemy force breaking into the hive. The windows were narrow gun slits and the doors reinforced iron. He knew from bitter experience that in gang wars and Arbite sweeps these ready-made fortresses became just as much a liability as an asset. Maybe giving every gang who could take one their own ready-made fortress was not the brightest of ideas. Then again this place was built with the single-mindedness of a Primarch intent on defending space forever more from the horrors beyond.

With a tap of his fingers Huulta activated his helmet’s infra goggles and their thermogram vision, revealing a dozen faint thermal blooms from what had to be human sized figures inside the warehouse. Anyone who was working for Zoernia would doubtless know by now about their employer's demise and wouldn't have stuck around.

Only one way of truly finding out. Huulta strode down the street like it belonged to him, marching right out in front of the Warehouse and activating his helmet's speaker system.

“This is Proctor Saal Huulta of the Arbites. I know you are in there. Come out with your hands up immediately. You have ten seconds to comply."

It only took four seconds before the first bullets went flying.


	6. Day Three: Bullets in the Underhive

For any who survived it, the experience of coming under fire ingrained into those fortunate enough a split-second skill the moment that distinctive crack crossed the eardrums. Before his mind could even consciously process the information, Huulta's body was already sprinting for the nearest cover. He threw himself into a narrow culvert as the bullets started to fly.

Zofall was going to have a field day with this.

The immediate danger minimized, Huulta had a split second to think about what to do next. Owe up to his miscalculation first, call for immediate backup.

He activated his helmet microphone. “Control, this is Huulta. We have a situation down on level eight. I am under fire. Over.”

He was greeted by static. Again, nothing.

Whoever was hunkered down here was packing some serious gear. They were actively jamming his comms. That took a military grade stummer, not something your average gang of low-life street thugs had on their hands.

A deep, throaty rattle added its voice to the chorus of bullets flying around Saal Huulta. A heavy stubber, rotor cannon or other PDF grade heavy weapon.

Was Zoernia involved in gun-smuggling? The vast stockpiles of arms kept at the Cadian Gate were a tempting target for any seeking to plunder weapons for sale elsewhere.

Another question to ponder later. Right now he had the immediate threat of being pinned down by enemy fire. Nothing had hit him yet, but some bullets were coming awfully close for comfort.

First, he wanted to let these low-lives know exactly who they had pinned down. Who's mercy they had crossed.

He activated his helmet’s voice amplifier once again. “Hear me lawbreakers. Your crimes are the possession of illegal weaponry, proscribed activity, and the attempted murder of an Arbite. You have all been judged. The sentence is death.”

Switching his mic to personal, he added an extra word to Oathkeeper.

"Executioner,"

With a smooth click his shotgun turned to the Magazine filled with one of the secret weapons of the Arbites: the ‘Executioner’ adamantium-tipped guided armour piercing round, designed to seek out and destroy the toughest and most entrenched targets.

Huulta remembered when his instructor had first taught him about the ‘Executioner’ round, over a hundred years ago. “This sophisticated shell has a tiny robot brain that locks onto the target’s energy pattern and seeks it out with unerring accuracy. The shell’s tiny brain cannot lock onto its target until it has traveled several metres, so do not use it if you are less than five metres away from your target. Understood!?”

No time now to check and see if he had his five metres or not.

He raised Oathkeeper over the parapet of the culvert and with practiced ease thumbed the trigger.

None but the Techpriests who made them truly understood how to make a guided bullet that could seek out and kill targets lurking behind cover. But it was a wonder weapon for the Arbites, something that evened the odds even in a situation this dire.

And Huulta certainly appreciated it when the roar of fire suddenly slackened as two shells made their targets.

With another click the shotgun loaded two more Executioner shells into the breach, and once more Huulta leaned up and popped off a shot, getting a quick glimpse of the Warehouse front. There were muzzle flashes from three windows that he could see. That would leave one active shooter if both shots hit. That would be his best chance of making a break for the Warehouse door, if he lay down a distraction first.

He reached for his belt and pulled out a blindgrenade, primed it with one finger and threw it out in front of him.

His Infravisor shielded his eyes from the blinding flash, but any ganger foolish enough to be taking aim at him were now practically blinded for a few seconds.

All the time Saal Hullta needed.

Pressing himself against the door of the warehouse, Huulta had gained a little more of that most precious resource, time. Time to work out a plan of attack.

First priority should be restoring contact with the Precinct Courthouse. That meant finding and disabling the stummer. To do that he would need entrance into the warehouse.

Thank the Emperor he brought those breaching charges.

Plucking the priming strip out with his teeth, one by one he set them on strategic positions on the warehouse's armoured doors.

Two seconds.

Pulling another stun grenade from his belt, he held Oathkeeper at the ready.

One second.

With a deafening crack the charges detonated, blowing a gaping hole in the armoured doors.

With a spin on his heel Huulta lunged through his fresh-made egress, throwing the stun grenade before him.

In the second before the stun grenade went off his eyes scanned the confines of the warehouse. It was big, a dozen STC shipping containers could fit snugly along each wall, and half a dozen could reach the roof. It was mostly empty, apart from He could see a dozen figures, probable gangers or cultists, moving forwards towards the entrance.

They would never get there in time.

In the second after the flash went off he thumbed the trigger, and watched as the shells sped forward, arcing for their targets who were already falling. The horrific wet 'splat' sound of a heavy bullet tearing into soft flesh lay upon the chatter of bullets, the grind of metal and the crunch of heavy boots on powdered rockrete.

Immediate threat over, now to locate the Stummer.

There was a single container left in the right-hand corner. That seemed the perfect place to keep it.

Threats: one enemy was down but only briefly. Huulta intended for this one to come back alive. There was at least one more above and behind him who had been engaged in keeping him pinned down. He couldn't leave that as a threat in his rear, so to speak.

He wheeled around and took several paces backwards, raising Oathkeeper as he did so.

His target was a female clad in what appeared to be stripped down PDF fatigues with some sort of red marking scrawled upon the chest. Could be a gang patch. Or a cult marking.

He needed that jacket to stay intact. The rest of her was fair game.

The executioner shell took her right in the forehead. The jacket might have some blood and brain matter on it now, but that was an acceptable trade-off.

Turn on his heels and shift Oathkeeper to his side, reaching down for his shock maul as he did so.

One hit at optimal setting should shock the last visible enemy senseless, ready for retrieval.

Unfortunately that particular foe, a thin man in the same defaced uniform was already getting to his feet.

He raised his weapon, an Agripinaa pattern type II Autogun. A common weapon in the armouries of the Cadian Gate. Huulta's first blow from his shock maul sent the man's Autogun flying. The man dodged his second, but not his third.

With an electric buzz the man was sent sprawling. Mission accomplished.

Now for that stummer. Huulta paced towards the storage container with purpose.

There were two more inside, a man and a woman. Both turned towards him, and both took executioner shells to the chest.

What he found them guarding was nothing short of an LRGS, a military grade stummer. Something no offworld trader or underhive rabble would have on hand.That would jam his mic for miles around. Thank the Emperor he didn't try and withdraw to a safe distance to re-establish contact.  


Pulling out a few wires always did the trick.

“Control, are you receiving me?”

This time a voice responded. “Copy Huulta, we ready you loud and clear. What happened? You fell off the grid for a while.”

“I have encountered hostiles, very well equipped and organized. For the moment their immediate numbers have been exhausted, but this a serious operation. Military hardware.

He scanned the room for any more signs of life as he added, "I need a backup squad, a Verispex squad and a disposal squad to take the bodies for recyc.”

“Copy Huulta, they’re on their way.”

Now he had a few minutes to check the warehouse for clues.


	7. Day Three: The Cavalry arrives

“You know what I’m gonna say,” Zofall began.

"Then say it. I deserve it."

Zofall seemed to take a perverse pleasure in pronouncing each word just so. "I told you so."

That stung more than it should have. "There was always the chance..."

"The hell with it. You've just stumbled onto something far bigger than this case alone Saal. Most low-life criminals aren't packing the kind of heat you went up against."

Saal Huulta looked over at the stack of Autorifles now lining the Warehouse wall. They were flanked by by half a dozen Heavy Stubbers, one of which was still stained with dried blood.

Enough firepower to outfit an entire platoon. And all that to defend this warehouse, and whatever was hidden within.

Verispex officers were everywhere searching for clues. The bodies had already been removed for recyk, and the captive was even now on his way up to the tender mercies of the Precinct Courthouse.

Zofall had arrived at the head of the column. Deep down Saal couldn't help but be touched that his partner, true to his word, was the first to come running.

Huulta rubbed his chin. "So, if we have a cult problem, then that problem just got a hell of a lot worse. This isn't a coven of crazies chanting out nonsense to their foul deities, this is a fully armed insurrection waiting to happen. We have an armed cult here, in a Hive at the heart of the Cadian Gate. This just escalated far above our pay grades."

"The hell it did Saal. You just blew open a giant canker in the most fortified region of the Imperium. This will go right up to the top. Never mind the Judge, this will end up in the lap of Segmentum Command."

"And there will be no justice for Zoernia or Sybort. We'll never know exactly who killed them, that'll be buried by all this." Huulta snarled.

"It's out of our hands now Saal." Zofall counseled. "I know how you feel about this, but you've got to let it go. Those who killed your victims will face their doom, that can be assured."

"But it won't be true justice." Huulta growled.

“Maybe not to you, but for the rest of us it'll suffice." Zofall shrugged. "In the mean time, the Judge’ll want to de-brief us personally. We should head back, leave the Verispex to dig up what they can."

By the time they got back, the news from below had already filtered down. There was a new tension to the Courthouse, a sense that a new normal was about to impose itself. From the front desk onward everyone had a subtle edge to them as they mentally geared up for what they all knew was to come: a full scale mobilization to strike back against the threat suddenly revealed.

The Judge was unavailable, so Huulta decided to go and record his AAR of the warehouse encounter. Seated at his desk, Huulta lifted his datapad onto his desk, tapping a button on the side. From either side slithered a silvery wire each no thicker than a human hair. Huulta took them in his hands and applied them to the corner of his eyes. With a sharp stab of pain they automatically slid into the corners of his eyes, accessing the nerve that connected the eyes to the brain. All he needed to do now was to mentally go through all the events that had taken place over the last six hours and they would be transcribed to the datapad. Job done.

It also allowed him to review the sequence of events that had brought him to this point. Sybort and Zoernia had been murdered by Chaos Cultists, a group that were now proven to be both sophisticated and well-armed. Their murders were not simply a ritual offering to their foul gods. There was something deeper about them, a group proclaiming their identity and daring the Arbites above to come for them.

What did they know that Huulta and the Arbites of Tetra did not?

Huulta needed to find that answer before they all walked into whatever trap he knew was waiting for them down there.

He sent his completed reports and leaned back in his chair. Next door, Zofall gave out one of his characteristic grunts. He preferred to type his reports the old fashioned way with keyplates.

"Geld for your thoughts?"

"This visit, the big one we were to be getting next week. Will they cancel it? If there's even the most remote chance of a threat..."

"No matter how well armed or numerous this cult might be, I doubt it could make its way all the way up to the hive spires. Not past ten million fully armed Guardsmen garrisoning the hive. The spires are safe for now."

"Yee, I guess you're right Saal. D'you think it'll be a Primarch? That's the scuttlebutt."

"It would make sense. A Primarch hasn't visited this world in the hundred years I've been living on it."

"That's because they only ever visit Cadia. The rest of the worlds in-system have never received their due."

"Cadia stands because we stand, Zofall. They might forget it, but we never will."

"Damn straight." Zofall agreed.

Zofall had just finished and sent his own report when a voice crackled through their office intercom. "Judge Reinhold will see you both now at his office."

The first clue that things had changed was the presence of an Arbite guard stationed outside the Judge’s office. Not only did he check both their ID cards, but also did a biometric scan as well. They entered to find the Judge on his vox, bellowing loudly into it as he paced around the room.

“…I told you, this changes nothing. The visit will go ahead as planned. This has come down straight from the top. There will need to be an increase in lowerhive security, but the PDF and Orpo can deal with it. Have I made myself clear?”

He disconnected and turned to Huulta and Zofall.

“Saal Huulta, once again your knack for uncovering trouble might have saved us all." Reinhold smiled at him. "Now we know we have a gamma-grade threat lurking in the underhive. One that might have caused us much strife were they left to fester. But now we know of them and can act accordingly.” The Judge turned to face the massive window, jaw set. “I’ve already spoken to the Lord Castellan of Cadia. He wants this problem dealt with as quickly as possible. The last thing the Imperium wants or needs is a crack in the wall, no matter how microscopic.”

Huulta nodded. “So sir, what is our next plan of action?”

"For you, nothing. For Zofall over here, calling his wife and telling her he's going to be late tonight.”

“Sir?” Zofall exclaimed.

“My dear Proctors, this is now gone far beyond the jurisdiction of the Arbites alone. We’re all heading for the Spinal Spire."

"The Spinal Spire?" Huulta and Zofall exclaimed.

"What would the Governor need with us?" Huulta asked.

"I'll let him explain that in person." Reinhold was already heading for the door, and Huulta and Zofall obediently followed.

Huulta loved the Arbite Valkyries. Flying in one never failed to lift his spirits. There was a longstanding rumour that Valkyries were so feared that high bounties were offered for shooting one down. In all of Huulta's years, that had only happened three times.

Deep down Huulta couldn't help but worry that given his luck today, this was about to be number four.

Darting through the labyrinth of upperhive spire, the Valkyrie flew higher and higher, up towards the very peak of the hive. Even so, it was a long hour sitting there in the red-lit troop bay of the Valkyrie with Zofall and Reinhold. No conversation could be held over the roaring of the engines, so they all sat there, each lost in his own thoughts.

Huulta breathed a sigh of relief as with a roar of retro-thrusters, the Valkyrie settled in to land. After a few seconds the ramp began to hiss open, a crack of light swiftly unfolding to reveal a mammoth landing platform attached to the side of an enormous tower, one that beautiful and deadly in equal measure. Doric columns supported gun platforms, and fluted windows concealed armoured shutters. 

The Spinal Spire, the seat of government, command centre and final strongpoint of Hive Tetra. Truly Huulta could believe that a Primarch had made this, for though he had only seen it a handful of times, every time it impressed him anew.

As did the view on the other side, facing outwards. This area was collectively termed the Cap, the very top of Hive Tetra. Up here, the Armoured Hiveskin was built like the petals of some monstrous flower which could be closed up in the event of war, but which now was open to the void. It was early evening, and the distant sky was dark blue, slowly fading to black high above him.

Huulta only rarely ever saw the natural sky. Every time he did he felt it a miniature miracle.

At least, on those days when Macharia wasn't facing the Eye directly. Those were the days nobody wanted to look up, when the skies were painted with unnatural lights.

In the distance, standing in between each of the gargantuan petals was one of the eight control spires, equidistant from both the Spinal Spire and each other. Smaller structures, each charged with the defence of an equal quadrant of the Hive. They were a later addition, and had none of the grace and form of the Spinal Spire.

"Finished admiring the scenery?" The Judge asked.

Saal gave a nod.

"Come along then. We don't want to keep the Governor waiting."

The Spinal Spire was as elegant within as it was without. The martial air never wavered even when well-lit corridors of blue carpet and red walls replaced the usual greys and gunmetals. This was not the functional Precinct Courthouse Saal was used to.

As they went up in the security elevator, the Judge gave them a last word of advice. “Remember, just keep calm and let me do the talking. If you are called upon, be polite and honest.” Reinhold muttered as the lift chimed and the doors opened. “And Saal,” he added as the doors slid open, “Try and keep your temper down if something comes up. This is not the time, nor the place.”

None of that filled Huulta with any confidence.


	8. Day Three: An unpleasant truth.

Governor Alastair Grey of Tetra was holding court in one of the observation lounges. This one was large enough to be a ballroom, one wall a single massive window that peered out over the control spires and to the hivescape beyond. The Governor was standing there with a dozen aides and lackeys. Huulta immediately noticed the robed member of the Mechanicum among the entourage.

There was no mistaking who the Governor was. He had a presence no other commanded. Even Huulta found his tread lightened somewhat as he followed the Judge towards him.

“Reinhold!” He called out warmly as they approached.

“Alastair!” The Judge replied. The two men locked arms, a firm greeting between old friends.

“Alastair, these are the Arbites involved in the investigation. Proctor Byrio Zofall and Proctor…”

“Saal Huulta," The Governor finished those words with a broad grin as his attention turned to Huulta. "One of the most famous Arbites in the Segmentum, over ten thousand cases under his belt and only one, a single one not successfully brought to a satisfactory conclusion.” Grey was smiling broadly as Huulta tried not to squirm. "It is an honour to meet you, Proctor Huulta.”

"I thank you for your kind words sir," Huulta began, "now what can my partner and I do to help you?"

"Always cutting to the chase he does," Reinhold added. "Nothing wasted. Is everyone present?"

“Not yet. She's on her way though. Landed just after you did.”

Wait, Huulta thought. _She?_

As if on queue, the lift bell chimed behind him.

"Impeccable timing."

The lift doors slid open to reveal a woman clad in a tight-fitting bodyglove. One that she wore very well indeed.

There was a grace and power to her steps Huulta had rarely seen. She flowed across the room like a fish through water. As she got closer Huulta noticed the nut-brown skin, sculpted cheek bones and prominent nose. The ripple of muscle beneath her bodyglove only added to her presence as it rivaled even the Governor's.

She was well armed. A beautiful short sword and what looked like an ancient quiver hung from her lush - don't think those thoughts Saal! - hips.

The woman tossed her head ever-so slightly as she stopped before the Governor, lifting a badge and presenting it to the Governor.

Saal recognized that symbol immediately, an an icy blast rolled down his spine.

It was happening again. One of _them_ had arrived.

“Isabeau de Shiloh, at your service.” She announced, her voice ringing out like the chime of a bell, clean and slightly melodious but with that metallic ring to it.

She then turned to Huulta himself. "And it seems, Saal Huulta of the Arbites, that you have just done us all a great service. The Ordo salutes you."

Huulta just shot her a look of pure venom, one failed to have any impact upon de Shiloh.

“Well met Investigator de Shiloh.” Reinhold smoothly interposed himself between Saal and de Shiloh, breaking the link. “It’s a deep honour to have a member of the Emperor's own Ordo Investigatorum with us today. I trust your journey from Nemesis Tessera was pleasant?” As he moved aside to let the Governor shake de Shiloh's hand, Reinhold shot Saal a look. Saal sheepishly nodded. This was no time to let his grievances air.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, now that everyone is here I open this emergency meeting of the Tetra High Council. We have a situation that has developed in the last ten hours to prose a serious risk to the security of the hive, the planet and the Cadian Gate itself. Before we continue, I would ask that Proctor Saal Huulta of the Arbites summarizes for us the last few days of his investigations and what he uncovered today."

Saal Huulta nodded and cleared his throat.

"Honoured men and women,"the last bit aimed away from de Shiloh, "Two days ago I was called in to investigate an unusual murder victim, one who was an offworlder from the homeworld of one of the Primarchss, and had been gruesomely and ritualistically sacrificed in a way consistent with the Cultists of the Primordial Annihilator. A second such victim was found the next day, and after searching through records retrieved from the first victim's dwellings, a link between them was found that included shipments passing through a rented warehouse. I investigated said warehouse today, only to find it occupied by hostiles armed with high-grade PDF weaponry and uniforms. These hostiles are believed to be members of the same Cult that murdered our two victims."

"So what you're telling me is that on the eve of the most important diplomatic visit in five centuries a significant armed Cult has emerged from the shadows?" The Governor's words were equal parts anger and annoyance.

"Yes Sir," Huulta replied, "And in the interests of security, this visit must be postponed or cancelled."

"I'm afraid it's not that easy, Proctor," The Governor started. "Their ship is in the Warp even now. They get here in three days."

" _They_ , sir?"

It's not a Primarch?

Governor Grey glanced across the group. “What you are about to hear is classified Vermilion. You have all been given clearance, but not a word is to be repeated outside these premises."

A note of reverence entered his words as he said, “Ladies, Gentlemen, the Emperor knows well the sacrifices we make here every day to keep the rest of space safe. Our never-ending vigil at the eye of Hell itself. And he has decided to reward our courage and valour with the thanks of his heirs. Eight of the Daughter Primarchs, the Grandchildren of the Emperor, are coming to Tetra."

Huulta was a master of composure. Unflappable, sangfroid. It took a lot to get a reaction out of him. This was one of those times. “This is the Cadian Gate sir; the last place those women should ever be. They do not belong here, you understand? They should not be here!"

Next second the enormity of what Huulta had just done struck him. Fug.

The Governor's glare was enough to show that he had crossed the line. Again. “The Judge informed me that you had issue with the Royal Daughters,” Governor Grey 's words reminded Huulta of the old drillmasters he had once had. It was not a pleasant comparison. “And he also informs me that for you, duty has always come first. For what it's worth I agree with you that it is a major risk, and that's why they are doing it. A gesture of honest human defiance in the face of the Eye above."

"Tell Huulta the last part, Alastair." The Judge asked.

"Two of the daughters who are coming are the daughters of the I and X Legions, the Ladies El'Jonson and Manus.”

A piece clicked into place, and it did not cheer Huulta one bit. "Those murders are in some way connected. The Cultists are targeting the...Godlings."

"Exactly." Huulta turned to face Investigator de Shiloh, who had been silent until this point. "Two people have been murdered in obvious Chaos rituals, both from the homeworlds of two of the Daughter's set to visit Tetra. One is suspicious enough, two is a conspiracy. And if the fell forces of Chaos could get at the Royal Daughters, the results would be beyond catastrophic.”

“So there we have it.” The Governor interjected. “The Daughters are on their way at the exact time a well armed and equipped Chaos cult is active sacrificing people for some foul ritual that could be linked to their arrival. It is too late to send them back, and the morale boost their presence will bring is too vital to be wasted. What we need to do is to nip this problem in the bud so the Cult cannot interfere with the visit."

"What you're asking for is clear, Governor." de Shiloh's smile was that of a shark. "A surgical strike to decapitate the Cult in the next few days. Leave them unable to act by the time the Daughters get here." Her smile widened. "That can be arranged."

  
Reinhold nodded in reply. “Of course Investigator, this was expected. All the case files and reports have already been forwarded to you so you may examine them before we start tomorrow.”

“And what about us?" Zofall demanded. "Is our part of this done?"

"I'm afraid not, Proctor Zofall." The Governor turned to the Judge. "Do you want to tell him, or shall I?"

That didn't sound good.

Reinhold took over. “I know you want to see this through, Saal. You are still on this case, but you now have to share it with Investigator de Shiloh.”

Fugging hell.

Just like last time. About to be trampled by an Investigator of the oh-so-mighty Ordo. And on a case involving the Royal-fugging Daughters of the Primarchs.

Everything was not turning up Saal.

One thing for it. Duty. Professionalism. Do not let that woman get under your skin.

“So, apart from the Lady El’Jonson and the Lady Manus,” their names came out of his mouth like a foul taste, “who are the others? Has anyone from their Legion homeworlds living on Tetra been reported missing in the last few weeks or months?”

"I can see you've already started," the Governor said approvingly. “All the details will be forwarded to you tomorrow morning. Investigator de Shiloh hasn't had the chance to read your reports yet."

“Something I will immediately rectify. Can't let the Proctor carry all the weight. I look forward to seeing what you are capable of, Saal Huulta." She gave him a barbed smile, turned on her heel and sailed away.

Once the three Arbites were safely on their way back to the Precinct Courthouse, Huulta pulled aside the Judge.

"Sir, when was I to be informed that the Godlings were coming to Tetra?"

"I wish you wouldn't call them that, Saal. That's what the gangs and Cultists call them."

"The words are fitting. Will I be involved with their visit in any way?"

Those words were daring the Judge to lay down one final sentence on Huulta this day, and the Judge did not disappoint.

“The Governor has asked for you to command the Arbite detail for the Daughter's arrival ceremony, as you are the most decorated Arbite in the system."

An honour Huulta would have sold in a second if it could have got him away from the duty that had just been laid upon him.

"I'm not the highest ranking Proctor on-world, surely somebody else..."

“Saal, like it or not, your reputation stretches far beyond Tetra or Macharia. To not have you acting as our representative to them would raise questions. Why do we not have our very best on this detail? Like it or not, this is the duty asked of you.”

"I never asked for any of this." Huulta moaned.

"The Daughters, the Investigator, or the case?"

"Yes." Huulta replied.


	9. Day Four: Isabeau de Shiloh

Her eyes snapped open at the repeated urges of the holo-chrono that flashed before her right eye. She blink-switched it off, and immediately felt the wave of fatigue as her body protested the early awakening. Once again the hint of a migraine began to press against her head. She ignored it as best she could as she struggled to her feet and padded over to the specially-placed rubber matting in the centre of her room, the lights flickering on automantically.

Everything fell into place, the smooth breathing, the rhythmic motions of her limbs as she twisted and flexed them. Her mother had introduced her to the ancient Terran art of Yougoua, an ancient exercise philosophy that had served humans since the age of Terra itself. Her family had practiced it for generations, and she felt the connection it gave to her bloodline intimately.

Her mind was still, with barely a ripple crossing it. Instead she felt keenly the power that pressed against her mind, a constant pressure seeking to break through. She felt the warm sensation of the torq that forever encircled her lower left arm. She gently, ever so gently let a little of it seep through. Splashing water signaled the shower, and with a final move worthy of the finest ballerina she finished her stretches and went for a shower.

It was frivolous to use such power for something so petty, but it was a handy practice for incredibly precise telekinesis, the sort that had saved her life on more than a few occasions.

What might save her life here, in the Hives of Macharia.

Drying herself off, her bodyglove was already waiting for her, floating before her on invisible strings. With a smile she plucked it out of the air and began to dress herself.

There was already a dozen messages waiting for her on her personal datapad from the most senior figures onworld. She selected the one from Judge Reinhold, head of the Tetra Arbites.

"Investigator de Shiloh, as per your request all files related to Case 1HL13SG/Huulta. I look forward to working with you for the foreseeable future and will be waiting for you at the Precinct Courthouse for a full briefing. Reinhold out."

Isabeau de Shiloh, Investigator of the Emperor's Ordo Investigatorum. Called by those who feared and hated them, 'The Inquisition'. Tools of internal security, defending the Imperium from the enemy within while those blunt tools, the Legiones Astartes and the Imperial Army defended it from the enemy without. Controversy surrounded the Ordo, feared by those they sought to defend. Spooks, they were called.

All words Isabeau tried to ignore. She served the Imperium and its people, to defend the average citizen from the horrors that lurked right around the corner. It was thanks to the tireless work that she and the other Investigators around the Imperium that citizens could sleep easily in their beds.

Of course, she wasn't tasked with protecting the average citizen now. The responsibility of nine of the Daughters lay on her shoulders. That was what had sent her from Nemesis Tessera, after barely a week of R&R. One did not ignore the orders of the Obscuras Conclave, the most powerful Investigators in the Segmentum. Especially not when there was still a mark on her record. A mark titled Bolanion.

Not that the mission wasn't important. But if she had to be honest, the security system that already existed to protect the Daughters of the Primarchs had worked well for a thousand years. If it hadn't been breached before, there was little a bunch of underhive Cultists, even ones seemingly as well armed as this mob could hope to breach it.

No, if something went wrong she would take the blame. And if everything ran like clockwork she would still be sidelined while other Investigators were sent on missions of real importance.

Still, this was her task. Isabeau de Shiloh never shied away from the task at hand.

Breakfast was a tasteless but effective Nutria-Bar and a cup of black Caf that had the taste of the real thing, not the ersatz form that was drunk the length and breadth of the Imperium. The Governor really wanted to make her feel at home if she was going this far. Did he have something to hide? Might be worth looking into.

As Isabeau sipped she flicked through the reports on her data-pad, skim-reading each one before switching to the next. As she did she felt a wave of appreciation for the work of Proctor Huulta. He was both meticulous and excellent at summarizing for ease of reading, making her job that much easier. Already he was living up to the reputation he'd earned in the halls of Nemesis Tessera, whenever the subject of the Arbites ever emerged in conversation.

First impressions aren't everything is an old saying of mankind. It certainly applied to Proctor Huulta after meeting him a few hours ago, when he came off as sullen and hostile. She had expected that from the moment she read his file. He had a bad history with the Ordo.

One he would have to get over. She needed the Saal Huulta of reputation to assist her here. And he would do so, willingly or otherwise.

Sending the cup over to land softly on the bench, Isabeau walked over and rested her hand on the metal chest lying beside her bed. A brief prick of pain as a blood sample was taken, and then with a glow the chest opened and revealed her personal gear.

Her sword. A short, leaf bladed weapon with a grid of disruption field emitters etched into it like runes. In a single fluid move she drew it from its scabbard and gave it several swift, precise swings, smiling at the whistle as it cut the air before it. Forged in the special forges of Deimos at the very heart of the Imperium. Most Investigators were dry or droll enough not to bother with naming their weapons. She named her sword Slyce. It had never let her down.

Opposite it was a quiver full of large silver needles, each a foot long. Kineblades, each a precise telekinetic projectile. More reliable than bullets, and much more flexible.

Between them lay a belt made from Wraithbone links, the belt buckle engraved with a stylized claw surrounded by Prosperine Runes. Her last gift when she left her training, handed to her by T'kar himself.

She was ready.

activating the personal recorder on her vambrace, she began recording her action log.

"This is Isabeau de Shiloh, Junior Investigator of the Emperor's Ordo. Operation Tetra begins now."


End file.
